Supporting engineering design using knowledge based systems technology with a case study in electricity distribution network design

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis explores the architectural requirements of engineering design support systems based on knowledge based systems technology. The exploration is based on an understanding of the nature of designing as a professional activity and on the extent to which designers' competence can be modelled. Attention is focused on certain salient aspects of designers' competent behaviour. The theoretical study leads to the specification of requirements to be satisfied by a knowledge based system which will support designers in their professional setting and to the proposal of some knowledge based system components which will meet the requirements identified. The theoretical aspect of the thesis is complemented by a case study based on a designer of high voltage electricity distribution networks. The case study illustrates the theoretical component of the thesis and the methodological basis for the work. The practical realizability of the components of the knowledge based systems architecture proposed are demonstrated using the results of the analysis of the knowledge elicited in the case study without prejudicing the general applicability of the ideas. An object-oriented knowledge engineering software development environment is used to demonstrate how some components of the design situation represented can be implemented.Financial support provided by Brunel University

An OMG model-based approach for aligning information systems requirements and architectures with business

Tese de Doutoramento (Programa Doutoral em Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação)The challenges involved in developing information systems (which are able to adapt to rapidly changing business and technological conditions) are directly related to the importance of their alignment with the business counterpart. These challenges comprise issues that cross management and information systems domains, relating and aligning them in order to attain superior performance for the organization, while identifying its strategy and tailoring its business processes. As this relation is increasingly intertwined its concepts are conducted to pragmatic methods, incorporating both management and information systems components, for how, when and where this alignment really matters. The related topics of the alignment between business and information systems comprise diverse paths of research, though with little common ground established inside the community, where problems arouse due to the fast moving business and technological environments. According to these circumstances, the process of developing information systems to support the alignment benefits from incorporating the use of structured and model-based approaches. So, as the development of evermore complex information systems presents a challenge for the currently available methods, the use of models to support the alignment with business stands as an increasingly important issue. Following those challenges, we set out to question how to develop solutions aligning information systems with business in a model-based approach. Accordingly, we support our research on the need to understand what are the perspectives involved in aligning information systems with business, and, moreover, to comprehend in what sense model adoption drives information systems development. So, the proposed goals for this thesis are: (1) set the basis for the elicitation of business requirements in order to support a well-grounded development of information systems; (2) provide for the generation of business models based on the business requirements, while assuring their alignment and traceability; and (3) arrange for the derivation of information system architectures from the business requirements, while attaining alignment and traceability for their mutual transformation and adaptation. Several issues surrounding these goals have already been described and approached in diverse ways by other researchers, where existing approaches and associated methods achieved good results. Nevertheless, these approaches are not without their shortfalls, sometimes failing to present a complete solution, others being unable to adapt to new challenges, or even incapable of reacting to recent trends. In order to tackle these issues we propose to build upon those approaches by adapting, evolving and innovating on solutions in each of the three proposed goals, respectively intertwining with perspectives from related standards and reference models. Answering the first goal, in what regards the main contributions of this thesis, we propose to broaden the elicitation of requirements by relating functional and nonfunctional requirements from business processes. So, we present a unified metamodel representation for those requirements, accompanied by a customizable method for their joint elicitation, based-on business-driven use-cases, goals and rules. This approach adopts the Rational Unified Process (RUP) development methodology and the Business Motivation Model (BMM) standard model language representation for business requirements. Moreover, the metamodel representation and method operationalization are accompanied by a prototype support tool that completes this first contribution. For the second goal, a more business-oriented one correlated to the higher-level requirements, we propose to generate business models directly from the inferred functional and nonfunctional requirements. So, we present a three-dimensional approach built on the relation of the referred requirements with the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) reference model, where an additional mapping to the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is also made available. This proposal provides an associated metamodel representation for the relation between the elements involved and a customizable method for their operationalization, all accompanied by a prototype support tool. On the third goal, focused on system architectures and connected to the lower-level requirements, we propose to derive service-oriented participants from the functional requirements, while aligning the nonfunctional requirements with the quality characteristics of the solution to-be. First, we present an evolution of an existing method for the derivation of a logical architecture, in order to adapt it to a service-oriented approach (SOA). Then, following on the existing relation between the nonfunctional and functional side of the low-level requirements, our approach is able to associate these last with its related services on the derived architecture, in another three-dimensional approach. Additionally, a mapping of the nonfunctional requirements with the system quality characteristics (CISQ) is made available. Once more, an associated metamodel, a customizable method and a prototype support tool are also provided. The development of these three approaches is supported through the execution of tasks which originate artifacts and lead to publications associated to their respective research and development efforts, all according to the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. These are applied in ongoing projects involving experimental scenarios in industrial settings and associated to established research reference patterns, balancing the interests of both researchers and practitioners while focused both on technology and management audiences. The results obtained from their evaluation reflect the quality and depth of our findings, helping to validate the scientific contribution of this work.Os desafios implicados no desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação (que sejam capazes de se adaptar a condições tecnológicas e de negócios em rápida mutação) estão diretamente relacionados à importância do seu alinhamento com a contraparte do negócio. Esses desafios envolvem questões que cruzam os domínios da gestão e dos sistemas de informação, relacionando-os e alinhando-os com o intuito de alcançar um desempenho superior para a organização, ao mesmo tempo que identificam a sua estratégia e adequam os seus processos de negócio. Como esta relação está cada vez mais interligada, os seus conceitos são canalizados para métodos pragmáticos, incorporando ambos os componentes de sistemas de informação e de gestão, para saber como, quando e onde este alinhamento realmente interessa. Os tópicos relacionados com o alinhamento entre negócio e sistemas de informação abrangem diversos caminhos de pesquisa, embora com poucos alicerces em comum estabelecidos dentro da comunidade, onde os problemas surgem devido às rápidas mudanças nos negócios e nos ambientes tecnológicos. De acordo com estas circunstâncias, o processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação para apoiar o alinhamento beneficia de incorporar o uso de abordagens estruturadas e baseadas em modelos. Assim, dado que o desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação cada vez mais complexos apresenta um desafio para os métodos atualmente disponíveis, o uso de modelos para apoiar o alinhamento com o negócio destaca-se como uma questão cada vez mais importante. Em linha com esses desafios, estabelecemos a questão de como desenvolver soluções para alinhar sistemas de informações com o negócio numa abordagem baseada em modelos. Neste sentido, apoiamos a nossa pesquisa na necessidade de compreender quais são as perspetivas envolvidas no alinhamento dos sistemas de informação com o negócio, e, além disso, de compreender em que sentido a adoção de modelos capacita o desenvolvimento desses sistemas. Assim, os objetivos propostos para esta tese são: (1) definir as bases para o levantamento de requisitos de negócio a fim de suportar um desenvolvimento bem fundamentado de sistemas de informação; (2) disponibilizar a geração de modelos de negócio baseados nos requisitos de negócio, garantindo o alinhamento e a rastreabilidade entre ambos; e (3) estruturar a derivação de arquiteturas de sistema de informação a partir dos requisitos de negócio, preservando o alinhamento e rastreabilidade para a sua mútua transformação e adaptação. Várias questões envolvendo estes objetivos foram já descritas e tratadas de diversas maneiras por outros investigadores, tendo as abordagens existentes e os métodos associados alcançado bons resultados. No entanto, essas abordagens têm as suas lacunas, umas vezes falham em apresentar uma solução completa, noutras são ineficientes ao se adaptarem a novos desafios, ou mesmo incapazes de reagir às novas tendências. Para lidar com estas questões, propomo-nos apoiar nessas abordagens, adaptando, evoluindo e inovando em soluções para cada um dos três objetivos propostos, intersetando-as, respetivamente, com perspetivas de modelos de referência e padrões relacionados. Relativamente ao primeiro objetivo, no que concerne aos principais contributos desta tese, propomos alargar o levantamento de requisitos, relacionando os requisitos funcionais e nãofuncionais dos processos de negócios. Assim, apresentamos um meta-modelo para a representação unificada desses requisitos, acompanhado por um método personalizável para o seu levantamento conjunto, baseada em casos-de-uso, metas e regras orientadas a negócio. Esta abordagem adota a metodologia de desenvolvimento do Rational Unified Process (RUP) e a representação padrão do modelo de linguagem do Business Motivation Model (BMM), para os requisitos de negócio. Além disso, a representação meta-modelo e a operacionalização do método são acompanhados por um protótipo de uma ferramenta de suporte que completa esta primeira contribuição. Quanto ao segundo objetivo, mais orientado ao negócio e correlacionado com os requisitos de nível superior, propomos gerar modelos de negócio a partir dos requisitos funcionais e não-funcionais inferidos. Assim, apresentamos uma abordagem tridimensional, construída sobre a relação dos referidos requisitos com o modelo de referência do Balanced Scorecard (BSC), em que um mapeamento adicional para o Business Model Canvas (BMC) é também disponibilizado. Esta proposta inclui um meta-modelo para representação da relação entre os elementos envolvidos e um método personalizável para a sua operacionalização, tudo acompanhado por um protótipo de uma ferramenta de suporte. No terceiro objetivo, focado em arquiteturas de sistema e ligado aos requisitos de nível inferior, propomos derivar participantes orientados-a-serviços desde os requisitos funcionais, alinhando os requisitos não-funcionais com as características de qualidade da solução a obter. Primeiro, apresentamos uma evolução de um método existente para a derivação de uma arquitetura lógica, adaptando-o a uma abordagem-orientada-a-serviços (SOA). Assim, prosseguindo a relação existente entre o lado não-funcional e funcional dos requisitos de baixo nível, a nossa abordagem associa estes últimos com os serviços relacionados na arquitetura derivada, numa outra abordagem tridimensional. Além disso, um mapeamento dos requisitos não-funcionais com as características de qualidade do sistema (CISQ) é disponibilizado. Mais uma vez, um meta-modelo associado, um método personalizável e um protótipo da ferramenta de suporte são disponibilizados. O desenvolvimento destas três abordagens é suportado pela execução de tarefas, as quais dão origem a artefatos e levam a publicações associadas aos seus esforços de pesquisa e desenvolvimento respetivamente, tudo de acordo com a metodologia DSR. Estas são aplicadas a projetos em andamento, os quais envolvem cenários experimentais em ambientes industriais e associados a padrões de investigação de referência, equilibrando os interesses de investigadores e profissionais assim como dos diferentes públicos de tecnologia e gestão. Os resultados obtidos na sua avaliação refletem a qualidade e a profundidade dos nossos resultados, ajudando a validar a contribuição científica deste trabalho

Values and value in design

Relatively little is known about how concepts of human values and value interact during the construction design process. Whilst researchers of value management have expounded in this context upon the complexity of the design process, problem-solving and sense-making, little is said about the alignment and reconciliation of multiple-stakeholder values and value judgements. An abductive reasoning and a grounded theory approach was adopted that iterated between literature and empirical observation to obtain new insights. The initial phase created a values and value framework and Value in Design (VALiD) approach through seven unstructured interviews, a design workshop, four Schwartz Values Surveys (with 545 participants) and 55 semi-structured interviews. The values and value parts were then separately implemented, developed and validated through action research on five live education capital projects, involving over 250 participants. Subsequently, a middle-range theory of values and value is proposed through theoretical triangulation. This draws on seven related theories to provide greater explanatory pluralism, uncover hidden phenomena and enable convergence. The research findings are significant in focusing soft value management on underlying stakeholder values and subjective value judgements. A more nuanced and intertwined relationship between stakeholder values, attitudes, behaviours and qualities during the design process is offered that promotes compromise and sense-making

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis

"Welfare polls" are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three "welfare polling" formats are dominant: contingent-valuation surveys, QALY surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists. This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the actual and potential uses of welfare polls in government decision making. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and concludes that they can be genuinely informative. Part IV synthesizes the case for welfare polls, arguing against two types of challenges: the revealed-preference tradition in economics, which insists on using behavior rather than surveys to learn about well-being; and the civic-republican tradition in political theory, which accepts surveys but insists that respondents should be asked to take a "citizen", rather than "consumer" perspective. Part V suggests new directions for welfare polls.

FIN-DM: finantsteenuste andmekaeve protsessi mudel

Andmekaeve hõlmab reeglite kogumit, protsesse ja algoritme, mis võimaldavad ettevõtetel iga päev kogutud andmetest rakendatavaid teadmisi ammutades suurendada tulusid, vähendada kulusid, optimeerida tooteid ja kliendisuhteid ning saavutada teisi eesmärke. Andmekaeves ja -analüütikas on vaja hästi määratletud metoodikat ja protsesse. Saadaval on mitu andmekaeve ja -analüütika standardset protsessimudelit. Kõige märkimisväärsem ja laialdaselt kasutusele võetud standardmudel on CRISP-DM. Tegu on tegevusalast sõltumatu protsessimudeliga, mida kohandatakse sageli sektorite erinõuetega. CRISP-DMi tegevusalast lähtuvaid kohandusi on pakutud mitmes valdkonnas, kaasa arvatud meditsiini-, haridus-, tööstus-, tarkvaraarendus- ja logistikavaldkonnas. Seni pole aga mudelit kohandatud finantsteenuste sektoris, millel on omad valdkonnapõhised erinõuded. Doktoritöös käsitletakse seda lünka finantsteenuste sektoripõhise andmekaeveprotsessi (FIN-DM) kavandamise, arendamise ja hindamise kaudu. Samuti uuritakse, kuidas kasutatakse andmekaeve standardprotsesse eri tegevussektorites ja finantsteenustes. Uurimise käigus tuvastati mitu tavapärase raamistiku kohandamise stsenaariumit. Lisaks ilmnes, et need meetodid ei keskendu piisavalt sellele, kuidas muuta andmekaevemudelid tarkvaratoodeteks, mida saab integreerida organisatsioonide IT-arhitektuuri ja äriprotsessi. Peamised finantsteenuste valdkonnas tuvastatud kohandamisstsenaariumid olid seotud andmekaeve tehnoloogiakesksete (skaleeritavus), ärikesksete (tegutsemisvõime) ja inimkesksete (diskrimineeriva mõju leevendus) aspektidega. Seejärel korraldati tegelikus finantsteenuste organisatsioonis juhtumiuuring, mis paljastas 18 tajutavat puudujääki CRISP- DMi protsessis. Uuringu andmete ja tulemuste abil esitatakse doktoritöös finantsvaldkonnale kohandatud CRISP-DM nimega FIN-DM ehk finantssektori andmekaeve protsess (Financial Industry Process for Data Mining). FIN-DM laiendab CRISP-DMi nii, et see toetab privaatsust säilitavat andmekaevet, ohjab tehisintellekti eetilisi ohte, täidab riskijuhtimisnõudeid ja hõlmab kvaliteedi tagamist kui osa andmekaeve elutsüklisData mining is a set of rules, processes, and algorithms that allow companies to increase revenues, reduce costs, optimize products and customer relationships, and achieve other business goals, by extracting actionable insights from the data they collect on a day-to-day basis. Data mining and analytics projects require well-defined methodology and processes. Several standard process models for conducting data mining and analytics projects are available. Among them, the most notable and widely adopted standard model is CRISP-DM. It is industry-agnostic and often is adapted to meet sector-specific requirements. Industry- specific adaptations of CRISP-DM have been proposed across several domains, including healthcare, education, industrial and software engineering, logistics, etc. However, until now, there is no existing adaptation of CRISP-DM for the financial services industry, which has its own set of domain-specific requirements. This PhD Thesis addresses this gap by designing, developing, and evaluating a sector-specific data mining process for financial services (FIN-DM). The PhD thesis investigates how standard data mining processes are used across various industry sectors and in financial services. The examination identified number of adaptations scenarios of traditional frameworks. It also suggested that these approaches do not pay sufficient attention to turning data mining models into software products integrated into the organizations' IT architectures and business processes. In the financial services domain, the main discovered adaptation scenarios concerned technology-centric aspects (scalability), business-centric aspects (actionability), and human-centric aspects (mitigating discriminatory effects) of data mining. Next, an examination by means of a case study in the actual financial services organization revealed 18 perceived gaps in the CRISP-DM process. Using the data and results from these studies, the PhD thesis outlines an adaptation of CRISP-DM for the financial sector, named the Financial Industry Process for Data Mining (FIN-DM). FIN-DM extends CRISP-DM to support privacy-compliant data mining, to tackle AI ethics risks, to fulfill risk management requirements, and to embed quality assurance as part of the data mining life-cyclehttps://www.ester.ee/record=b547227

Barriers and Facilitators to Needle Exchange Implementation: Perceptions of Community Stakeholders In Prince George's County, MD

Prince George's County, MD has the second highest incidence of HIV in both the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region and the state of Maryland. Approximately 14% of the living cases of HIV/AIDS in Prince George's County in 2009 were attributable to injection drug use. In the 1990's, Prince George's County was one of only two jurisdictions in the state of Maryland to be granted an exemption to the state's drug paraphernalia law to operate a needle exchange program, a harm reduction intervention shown to be effective in lowering incidence rates of HIV in injection drug user populations. However, Prince George's County has yet to implement a needle exchange program to reduce the spread of HIV among injection drug users. This study examined the perceptions of key community stakeholders on what possible barriers and facilitators to the implementation of a needle exchange program exist in Prince George's County. Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with stakeholders from the community sectors of elected officials, law enforcement, public health professionals, drug treatment counselors, neighborhood associations, and religious institutions from two legislative districts within the county. Themes and sub-themes emerged naturally using the Grounded Theory Model of qualitative data analysis. The themes that emerged in connection to barriers and facilitators to needle exchange program implementation included the image of Prince George's County, stigma, needle exchange as a political issue, benefits and harms of needle exchange programs, funding, injection drug use as a declining problem in the county, a need to raise awareness about HIV transmission in injection drug users, and differences between inner-beltway and outer-beltway areas in Prince George's County. Based on analysis of these themes, the barriers and facilitators to needle exchange program implementation in Prince George's County were identified and described, the feasibility of implementation was assessed, and recommendations were developed for local policy makers to aid in the implementation. Overall, barriers outweighed facilitators by more than 3 to 1, and the assessment concluded that implementation of a needle exchange program is unlikely at this time. However, this research sheds light on the history of needle exchange for HIV prevention in Prince George's County, and can be used to inform future research on harm reduction efforts

Risk Quadruplet: Integrating Assessments of Threat, Vulnerability, Consequence, and Perception for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense

Risk for homeland security and homeland defense is often considered to be a function of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. But what is that function? And are we defining and measuring these terms consistently? Threat, vulnerability, and consequence assessments are conducted, often separately, and data from one assessment could be drastically different from that of another due to inconsistent definitions of terms and measurements, differing data collection methods, or varying data sources. It has also long been a challenge to integrate these three disparate assessments to establish an overall picture of risk to a given asset. Further, many agencies conduct these assessments and there is little to no sharing of data, methodologies, or results vertically (between federal, state, and local decision-makers) or horizontally (across the many different sectors), which results in duplication of efforts and conflicting risk assessment results. Obviously, risk is a function of our perceptions and those perceptions can influence our understanding of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. Some assessments rely on perceptions (elicited from subject matter experts) in order to qualify or quantify threat, vulnerability, and consequence. Others exclude perception altogether, relying on objective data, if available. Rather than fault the subjectivity of our perceptions, or muddle objective assessments with personal opinions, it makes sense to embrace our perceptions, but segregate them as a unique component of risk. A risk quadruplet is proposed to systematically collect and integrate assessments of threat, vulnerability, consequence, and perception, such that each dimension can be explored uniquely, and such that all four components can be aggregated into an overall risk assessment in a consistent, transparent, traceable, and reproducible manner. The risk quadruplet draws from the fields of homeland security, homeland defense, systems engineering, and even psychology to develop a model of risk that integrates all four assessments using multicriteria decision analysis. The model has undergone preliminary validation and has proven to be a viable solution for ranking assets based on the four proposed components of risk